State Commissioner to the Military Court Judge Saqr Saqr charged on Saturday 12 people, including Arab Democratic Party official Refaat Eid, with belonging to an armed group, possession of arms and inciting sedition.
The state-run National News Agency reported that the 12 men are charged with belonging to an armed terrorist group involved in battles between the rival neighborhoods of Jabal Mohsen and Bab al-Tabbaneh in the northern city of Tripoli.
They are also charged with the possession of arms and inciting sectarian sedition.
The case was referred to the First Military Investigation Judge Riyad Abou Ghida.
On Tuesday, security forces kicked off the security plan in Tripoli, seizing arms depots and detaining wanted suspects, who are involved in security chaos in the area.
Around 30 people have been killed in the past month in Lebanon's northern coastal city of Tripoli in clashes between Sunni Muslims and members of the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam to which Syrian President Bashar al-Assad also belongs. The rebels fighting Assad's forces are mostly Sunni.
Of the 12 people charged by Lebanon's military prosecutor, 11 have fled and have not been apprehended, the judicial sources said, including Refaat Eid, which draws its support largely from Tripoli's Alawites.
Eid's house was among those raided when the army deployed in Tripoli in force on Tuesday.
Like the others, Eid was suspected of "belonging to an armed terrorist organization aiming to carry out terrorist activities, participation in incidents ... in Tripoli, possessing weapons and inciting sectarian and confessional strife," Lebanon's National News Agency reported.
On Friday, Lebanon's military prosecutor charged two suspected Lebanese armed men with belonging to a Syrian Sunni Islamist rebel group tied to al Qaeda.
Lebanon, still dealing with the fallout of its own 1975-90 civil war, has struggled to contain Syria-related violence inside its borders. Over 150,000 people have died in Syria's three-year-old conflict and millions more have fled their homes.
LBCI/REUTERS
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